Idealism on Trial

Abstract

The St. Nicholas Welfare Center stood in the heart of Harlem. Located in a multistory brick office building on 125th Street, it had a well-worn, kind of grimy atmosphere, with grey metal desks and institutional green walls. Inside, it was not a place of joy; on one floor, plodding and perpetually glum caseworkers sat mostly bent over piles of case folders, and on another milling and quarrelsome clients impatiently awaited their turn to be interviewed. The sounds and sights outside were those of a poor section of the city. Most of 125th Street was a shopping strip where inexpensive furniture stores jostled for limited business with shoe outlets and small-scale groceries. On the surrounding side streets solid tenements were crowded with large families and grim-faced transients. In front of them, brownstone stoops led down to asphalt roadways lined with automobiles and sidewalks that hosted a sporadic pedestrian traffic.

Preview

Notes and References

1.

For an overview of the welfare system see Cozic, C. (1997). Welfare Reform. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press. For an assessment of some of its difficulties see: Gordon, L. (1994). Pittied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare. New York: Free Press. One of the best critiques of the 60s is found in Magnet, M. (1993). The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties Legacy to the Underclass. New York: William Morrow, while a chilling review of the decade’s darker side is on view in Collier, P. & Horowitz, D. (1996). Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the’ 60s. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar

2.

One of the pioneers of this treatment was Marie Nyswander, whose story is told in Hentoff, N. (1968). A Doctor Among the Addicts. New York: Rand McNally.Google Scholar

Among the best depictions of these institutions are found in Scull, A. (1974). Museums of Madness: The Social Organization of Insanity in Nineteenth Century England. Princeton University Ph.D. and Scull, A. (1981). Madhouses, Mad-Doctors, and Madmen: The Social History of Psychiatry in the Victorian Era. London: The Athlone Press. A particularly biting examination of the concept behind these insitutions is provided by Szasz, T. (1961). The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct. New York: Dell.Google Scholar

5.

For a review of deinstitutionalization see: Johnson, A. B. (1990). Out of Bedlam: The Truth About Deinstitutionalization. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar

Two works on homelessness are: Roleff, T. (1996). The Homeless. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press; Rossi, P. (1989). Down and Out in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

8.

At the time, one of the more salient patient goals was “normalization.” The rationale for this, vis-a-vis the retared was provied by: Wolfensberger, W., with Nirje, B., et al. (1972). The Principle of Normalization in Human Services. Toronto: National Institute on Mental Retardation.Google Scholar

For other views of America’s value systen see: Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swindler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1985). Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; Hearn, F. (1997). Moral Order and Social Disorder: The American Search for Civil Society. New York: Aldine de Gruyter; Lasch, C. (1979). The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: Warner Books; and Seligman, A. B. (1992). The Idea of Civil Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar